


we wont slip through your fingers

by foxmulder_whereartthou



Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: Adoption, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Family, Gen, Good Parent Sakura Sojiro, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Persona 5 Protagonist is from Inaba, Post-Canon, Sakura Sojiro Adopts Persona 5 Protagonist, oop!!!!! good tag, this is maybe the longest fic ive ever written. thats wild. fgdhksjf, wow his parents suck :(
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:42:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25735237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foxmulder_whereartthou/pseuds/foxmulder_whereartthou
Summary: Since Akira's been taken in by the Sakuras, the memories of the night he'd been sent back home far too fresh, everything had been fine.Now, however, they're acting strange, and Akira's worried.
Relationships: Kurusu Akira & Phantom Thieves of Hearts, Kurusu Akira & Sakura Sojiro
Comments: 14
Kudos: 284





	we wont slip through your fingers

Something was up with the Sakuras. Mona, too, which was just as (and maybe more) worrying.

Since  _ that night, _ all those weeks ago, Akira had been living with Futaba and Sojiro, which was fine by him. He was a part of the family now, and this was his home. 

* * *

For the others, parting had been bittersweet. For Akira, it had just been bitter. 

He wasn’t excited to go home, especially after months of his parents not attempting to contact him at all, especially after months of these people  _ becoming _ his family. However, there was a certain kind of pleasant nostalgia that came with driving through his hometown, his head on Ryuji’s shoulder, the beat-up streetlights blurring into each other as he fought to stay awake. 

He pointed out to Ann which building his middle school had been, told Haru about all the times he’d nearly fallen into the river just down that hill, you can see if you crane your neck, it’s so beautiful when the light hits it, I really wish we’d gotten here when it was lighter, heh-

Before he knew it, he was on the doorstep with Morgana, his friend’s shouts and the bright blue of the van disappearing on the wind. 

“Ready?” Morgana mewled, looking around him, taking in the scenery of his new, and Akira’s old, house. It wasn’t a home just yet - but it had potential. 

Such a shame then, when that potential was wasted so quickly. 

Akira knocked three times. Then three more. And then three more, and more, until Morgana was scratching at the door. Finally, after what felt like hours, the tell-tale sound of the clicking of a lock sounded and his parents were facing him for the first time in months. 

They didn’t look happy to see him - quite the contrary;

“What are you doing here?” his mother’s voice was steady, but he could hear badly-contained fury thrumming at the surface of it.

“My probation’s up,” Akira explained, trying not to visibly shake. “I’ve come home.”

Home. The word sounded wrong, even Mona could tell. It wasn’t the right descriptor for a place with an atmosphere like this. Both of them tried hard not to think about how much further and further away their friends were becoming. 

“You’re not welcome here,” his father snarled, planting his forearm onto the side of the doorframe.

Time stopped - Akira’s understanding lilted. “What? But, Dad-”

“You’re no son of ours,” his mother scowled, the anger in her tone finally making itself known, “That was decided the day that you became a criminal. Leave.”

Despite the cold, he felt his face heating up, Morgana shuffling on his heels, and Akira opened his mouth to speak, only to be shut down by his father, again.

“Leave, before we call the police.”

And, although the act was most unbefitting for a Phantom Thief, Akira turned tail and ran.

By the time he’d reached the river, and the moon was sparkling wonderfully on the water, Akira couldn’t see anything through his tears. Once he’d regained the ability to breathe, and sat down on the edge, Morgana curled up on his lap and fished his phone out of his pocket.

“You should call them, Akira,” he prompted, quietly. 

Akira only hiccuped again. “Call who? They’re too far away by now,” he gasped, but Ryuji was already on speed-dial and the sound of the ring on speakerphone was echoing into the night.

“‘Kira? You home safe?”    
Ryuji’s voice, tinny through his speakers, the quiet bustle of the others cueing him into the fact he was probably on speaker on their end, too, did nothing to stop him from sobbing into the phone. In no time, everyone was speaking up, asking him what was wrong, where he was, what had happened. 

In the end, Morgana had to press his little paws onto the screen and explain. 

“We… We got kicked out. Can you guys help?”

Off in the background, they could hear Futaba say; “I’ll call Sojiro immediately.”

Everything was moving so fast - in no time he was at the inn he’d passed hundreds of times on the edge of town, everyone inside staring at the way his bag rustled unnaturally and the blotchy redness on his cheeks, asking for a room prepaid by Haru Okumura - yes,  _ that _ Okumura - the call was made about fifteen minutes ago, for Akira Kurusu? 

Kurusu didn’t sound right, just like Home hadn’t sounded right, like puzzle pieces forced into the wrong spots, bent out of shape and ruining the picture.

Regardless of how Mona had begged, pleading with him just to lie down, an hour of sleep was better than none, it was obvious when he’d left the inn the next day that Akira hadn’t slept at all. Ryuji and Makoto and Yusuke and Futaba and Ann swarmed him the second they saw him, smothering him in a hug that started him crying all over again, nearly knocked off his feet by all of them. 

“Can I,” he wiped his eyes again, cleared his throat to sound more normal, “Can I ask a favour before we leave for good?”

“Absolutely,” Makoto had replied, a soft, sad smile on her face, everyone else still trying to catch their breath after crying too. “What is it?”

Looking down to Mona in his lap, and then back up again to the front seat, Akira set his brow and asked, “Do you mind if we stop by my… old house one last time? I want to get some things out of my room.”

Everyone’s eyes immediately shot towards him, but nobody said anything except Makoto, who responded with a quiet, unsure; “Okay.”

Once the van had pattered to a stop, and Akira noticed that his parent’s car wasn’t there, he had no qualms about deftly picking the lock and sneaking up the stairs, well-worn reflexes guiding him past every creaky floorboard, and towards his bedroom. 

When he opened the door, however, he didn’t see his usual bookshelf, lined with his textbooks and his DVDs, or his school flag tacked to the wall, or his bed - or anything, really. 

The room had been stripped - repainted, waiting for new life and purpose. 

Akira felt his heart drop into his stomach as he scrambled across the room on his knees, scrabbling at the edge of the skirting board, where his most prized possessions were kept. The box was still there, it’s contents intact, coated in dust and grime and god knows what else, but everything else was still gone. 

Shakily rising to his feet, he didn’t bother with going back out the front door. Instead, Akira simply wrenched open the window and shuffled down the drainpipe, wiping as much dirt off the box as he could before climbing back into the van. 

“I didn’t take you for a minimalist, Akira,” Yusuke noted, trying to lighten the mood a little. 

Ryuji didn’t look convinced. “Is that everything?”

For the second time in 20 hours, Akira felt tears start to pool in the corners of his eyes again. 

“They were serious,” he tried to say, “Everything’s gone. This was all that’s left.”

Yusuke instantly looked extremely guilty, patting him idly on the shoulder. 

“C’mon,” Futaba said, ruffling his hair, “When we get back and you have some of Sojiro’s curry, you’ll feel a lot better.”

And she was right. But then that plate of curry turned into the spare room at theirs for the night, and then for the week, and then, established in a quiet, self-contained heart to heart, forever, if he wanted. And he had. He had wanted that so, so much. 

* * *

Now, however, after weeks of everything being okay, after Akira had become a part of their lives more so than before, they were acting obviously off. It was concerning, to say the least. 

At first, it had only been a few stolen words between Futaba and Sojiro, but then he’d come home from talking with Iwai at the shop one night, and they’d frozen up once he’d entered the room. 

It was easy to tell that Mona knew what was going on - but Morgana hadn’t said anything about it, and that made Akira think it was bad.

Dinner conversation, usually filled with Futaba lazily chatting about whoever was being cancelled now, Akira keeping them up to date on his seemingly endless string of friends, and Sojiro trying (and failing) to pretend he knew whatever they were going on about, had become stilted, and far too awkward for anything to be fine. 

Were they sick of him? He should know not to dwell on it, but what if they were?

* * *

That night, tossing and turning in his (non-crate-supported) bed, Morgana curled up in his own cat blanket across the room, Akira dreamt of sakura blossoms. 

There had been an orchard back home, and so often it had been the talk of the town, a place for young couples to visit and gardeners to dream of and Akira to hide in. At some point it had become muscle memory; he'd leave school and go weaving through the bushes, sometimes hopping over the rickety old gate, to lose himself in the soft, raining pink of new spring. 

In one of his old textbooks, he'd read up on Hanakotoba - the japanese language of flowers - and those cherry blossoms meant kind, and gentle, everything that  _ Sojiro _ is, and lost in the comfortable nostalgia in his dream, Akira looks up to the sky and sees not the trees and the clouds but Sojiro, looming worriedly over Akira. 

In the dream, Sakura is a whole head taller than Akira, and when he meets his eyes the wind picks up, swirling the petals around them, a tornado of affection that Akira doesn't know how to ask for. Suddenly the peaceful day turns into late night - the same kind of late night it'd been all those months ago when Akira had run into that woman on the way home from the orchard, and Sojiro wraps his arms around Akira as the leaves on the trees settle. 

"It's okay," Dream-Sojiro says, and Akira can feel another, smaller, warm body hugging him.

"Hey," Dream-Futaba murmurs, and a mewling cat slinks through the maze of all of their ankles, "We're here." 

Softened by their affection, he turns to liquid, and drowns the town. 

Akira wakes with hot tears on his cheeks and hands clutched in his bedsheets, instead of the backs of his family.

* * *

A few days later, when Akira’s texting Ann in his bedroom, Sojiro calls him down and his heart starts pounding without hesitation. He sidles into the living room, staring desperately into Sojiro’s eyes for some clue for what’s going on. Futaba pokes her head over the couch and Akira starts spiraling. 

“Is something wrong? Have I-” Akira clenches his fists, biting his nails into his palms, “Have  _ I _ done something wrong?” 

“No!” Futaba yells, “It’s nothing like that.” 

She smiles, wider than he’s ever seen, and he stops. What does that mean? 

Sojiro, who Akira notices has been holding something behind his back, steps forward. 

“Look, kid, you’re one of us. You’ve been one of us for.. longer than we might think.”

Sojiro is holding papers, and he barely has time to say; “How’d you feel about becoming a Sakura?”, before Akira launches into his arms, and Futaba does too, and it’s like the dream but so much better because they’re  _ here,  _ with him, present and real and he buries his face in Sojiro’s shoulder and smiles through his tears.

* * *

Akira hadn’t told the others yet, despite the fact that people were still using his parent’s name, but that’s because he was waiting for the perfect moment. 

And this was the perfect moment. 

They were all sitting together at Leblanc, crowded around one of the booths like they always had, laughing and talking like they always had. As if she knew his plan, Makoto piped up; “You know, I don’t think ‘Kurusu’ has ever really suited you, Akira.”

Making eye contact with Futaba across the room, and then Sojiro, he brightens instantly.    
“That’s because it’s not my name.”

Ryuji barely has time to protest before Akira whips out his gleaming new student ID. 

“I’m Akira Sakura, now.”

Everyone abruptly goes into uproar, asking how long he’d known, smiling and congratulating them, and Akira had never felt so happy, surrounded by all kinds of family. 

After the others leave, the Sakuras lock up together, cleaning the tables and stacking away coffee jars in perfect harmony, falling into that wonderful rhythm only achieved by true family. 

**Author's Note:**

> im so proud of this !! thank u so much for reading !!!!!!
> 
> cant believe that the flashback alone would be the longest thing i've ever written   
> i lov u all <3333


End file.
